An Affair to Ponder
7 days post kiss, 9pm
The living room of the small beachside cottage looked the aftermath of a tornado. A tornado that only spat out food scraps in its wake. Practically passed out on the couch, Lorelai and Rory stared heavy-lidded at the tv, where 'An Affair to Remember' was screening. On the coffee table sat an empty pizza box, five containers of thai food, a block of chocolate and empty soda cups. On the end table sat the remains of apple pie, half a bowl of popcorn and an almost empty container of Pringles.
"I'm gonna be sick," Rory mumbled, wrapping her arms around her stomach.
"Hey you get no sympathy from me,. It was your idea to get that curries instead of chinese," her mother replied.
"Well it was a good idea at the time," Rory mumbled half heartedly. Though they were glad to be away from Stars Hollow, their minds had not caught up with their bodies. Each was still consumed by thoughts of all that had happened in the last week. The movie was barely a distraction from their troubles, but as Cary Grant showed up at Deborah Kerr's apartment near the end, Rory was reminded of the question she had been trying to ask all week.
"Mom, what's going on with you and Luke?" She saw Lorelai stiffen out of the corner of her eye, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. "I mean, last weekend you seemed happy, if not a little confused about dating him, and then at the inn everything was fine. But I know you haven't had a single cup of his coffee all week and I know you haven't set foot in the diner either, so what happened?"
"That's not true. I had some this morning." Lorelai chose the easiest question to answer.
"You went to Luke's?" Rory asked in disbelief.
"Not exactly."
"So how did you get his coffee? Did you stage a covert operation at 4am to steal his beans? Do not say yes because I will not be impressed if you did it without me."
"No, he came to the house this morning when I was leaving for work. He brought me a thermos."
"He was there? What did he say?" Rory sat up, suddenly excited that there might be something juicy any second.
"Not a whole lot. He was mad."
"Wait, I'm confused. Something must have happened last weekend that you haven't told me about. I need to know all the details, so spill."
"Are you sure you want to hear all this? I'm not gonna dump this on you if you can't handle it, especially when you have your own issues to figure out," Lorelai was just trying to find a way out of talking about it, and her daughter was well aware of this fact.
"Mom, come on, since when did we start not telling each other everything? It will be a good distraction anyway."
Lorelai was silent a moment as she gathered her thoughts and figured out where to begin. "He kissed me."
"What! When?"
"And then I kissed him. And then we were inches away from kissing each other when Kirk burst onto the scene wearing nothing but a pillow."
Rory visibly shuddered at the idea, and replied, "Ok, so I know the story with Kirk, but give me details! Where? How? Why?"
"We were talking in the hallway, and he was all pissed off and acting like the Grinch because Jason had shown up and was apparently spreading the word that we hadn't broken up. And then he went outside to the porch, maybe he was gonna leave, I don't know, but I followed him and we were still arguing and then suddenly he's grabbing me and kissing me."
"So you were arguing and then kissing? How does that work?"
"I don't know, it wasn't exactly an argument, I guess we were both frustrated about things that were said or not said and we were kind of.. I don't know, yelling?"
"Okaaaay, and the how?" Rory urged, wanting to hear the good stuff.
"The how? I thought I just explained how."
"No, how as in, how was he?"
Lorelai sighed as though she didn't want to bring that up, but as soon as she remembered how it had felt, a smile crossed her lips and her daughter caught it quickly.
"I knew it! So how good exactly? Like better than you ever thought he would be, or better than you ever thought George Clooney would be?"
"Definitely the second one," Lorelai admitted.
"Ok, so everything I'm hearing so far sounds positive, but I gotta tell ya, I'm still feeling like President Bush about the reason you're avoiding him."
"I don't know."
"Well let me help you figure it out," Rory pleaded, happy to continue avoiding her own problems.
"I guess I'm feeling a little George W. about the whole thing. I mean here is this guy I have known forever and he's one of my best friends. And all of a sudden he's doing and saying all these things that I never in my wildest dreams thought he would, and in some ways I feel like I don't know who he is anymore. I mean the way he asked me to his sister's wedding was fine, he was acting all casual and like he was doing me a favour by giving me a break from my crazy life. But then, even at the start when I met him outside the diner, he comes out of nowhere and says I look beautiful. I mean I don't think I've ever heard him say that word before. And then he's asking me to dance and out to the movies and buying me flowers – which by the way he admitted he has never done before, and while a big part of me likes all this new attention, another part of me is wondering who the hell this guy is."
"Maybe it's the new Luke."
"Yeah, but what happened for him to change so suddenly? It's like he just woke up one morning and decided to be someone completely different. No one does that without a reason, and what if it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Nicole?"
"Nicole? Why would it have anything to do with her?"
"Because he's only just gotten the divorce, and I'm worried that all of this is a reaction to that."
"You think you're his rebound girl?"
"I don't want us to get messed up in it all because there's just no way that we could ever go back. I don't want to be used to make him feel better about himself, to make him feel wanted, because you just don't do that to your best friend."
"Mom, I think you're forgetting one important piece of information. Luke loves you," Rory stated as if it were obvious.
TBC... Reviews are greatly appreciated :)